Danish lawyer charged in Morgans' Ponzi scheme

Monday

Mar 4, 2013 at 4:03 PMMar 5, 2013 at 7:05 AM

He handled more than $26 million for the Sarasota couple, prosecutors say; almost none of it has been recovered

By MICHAEL POLLICK

Danish attorney Eli Heckscher — who handled more than $26 million funneled to Europe by convicted con artists John and Marian Morgan of Sarasota — has been criminally indicted in Denmark, according to media reports.

Heckscher’s trial, on fraud and money-laundering charges, most likely will occur in the spring of 2014, according to Danish business daily Dagbladet Borsen.

Heckscher also continues to face indictment in Tampa federal court, part of an already adjudicated case against the Morgans and their Morgan European Holdings’ Ponzi scheme. Although indicted, he has not been extradited to stand trial in the U.S.

Through their European holding company, the Morgans promised more than 100 U.S. and Canadian investors monthly yields of 30 percent to 70 percent from March 2005 through October 2009.

Both John and Marian Morgan are now in federal prisons. John Morgan, 54, pleaded guilty to a series of lesser charges and is serving a 10-year term, in Georgia. Marian Morgan, 58, went to trial in the fall of 2011 and was convicted. She is serving 35 years in a federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas.

If convicted, Heckscher faces the possibility of roughly four years in prison, the Danish news organization reported.

Jackie Kreitzman, a California speech pathologist who invested $200,000 in the Morgans’ fraud, was among the first to confront Heckscher directly about his role in the scam, in 2008. She hired a Danish attorney and flew to Denmark for the meeting.

“My perspective is that, from the time I went and had the meetings with Eli, there was no doubt that this was a fraud,” Kreitzman said Monday. “He should have gone with us at that time to the police, right then and there.”

Kreitzman, unlike most other victims, actually got her money back.

She has continued to advocate for the rights of the other investors in Morgan European Holdings, many of whom have received nothing.

She may become a witness at Heckscher’s trial.

Meanwhile, although the two Morgan European Holdings’ founders are in prison, similar scams have proliferated, thanks to Internet networking sites, where they are listed as “Private Placement Programs.”

“Most are nothing in the world but old prime-bank schemes, except that they are now calling them something else,” Branscum said.

On LinkedIn, one group is saying it can turn $25 million into $7 billion in 40 weeks, Branscum pointed out. The Morgans tossed around similar numbers, telling investors that their modest investments could be pooled to make sizable profits.

In the Morgans’ case, they wired funds to Heckscher, who moved the money around the globe before sending a sizable portion back to the Morgans for their own private use, according to court documents and testimony used to convict the couple.